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Pollution

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Submitted By jdavis4982
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Do you think our government should take a more active role in enforcing laws that punish companies that pollute the earth?

No, I think our government has done enough in this area. They have set forth laws and have updated them several times through out the years. In December 2, 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was formed to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection.

If you go to http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/historical-environmental-topics you can see the variety of environmental topics that have been tackled by this agency. By far we have helped reduce our carbon footprint since 1970 to this day. EPA has done a good job in my opinion in enforcing the law established and fining companies. Even though the damage is done all they can do is go after compensatory damages as they cant replace someone health or make animals or land come back to life. They biggest two violations that come to mind have been in the united states in the past 26 years that I am aware of were the Exxon Valdez spill in March 1989 and BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010 resulting in Exxon paying 4 billion dollars in compensatory damages and BP paying 18.7 billion dollars in compensatory damages. Since pollution knows no boundaries these effects can have effects on other nations beyond our borders.

The US only makes up 4.43% of the world population, with China having 18.9% and India having 17.6% of the world population. With the these three countries making up 40% of the population of the world these countries need to come together to establish or set the same standards in when it comes to Environmental Protection. We are the top three countries when it comes to pollution producing countries. The EPA is involved in the United Nations trying to unify the countries to come together to fix this problem globally. Until it is rectified it will be something that will be a problem in the future.

The EPA is doing a great job in my opinion. After reading this web page on what the EPA is doing I think anymore would be to much money and time - http://www3.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej/ce-initiatives.html In the USA the EPA could define and enforcing their strategies:

Advance environmental justice goals through selection and implementation of the National Enforcement Initiatives (NEIs) Advance environmental justice goals through targeting and development of compliance and enforcement actions. Enhance use of enforcement and compliance tools to advance environmental justice goals in regional geographic initiatives to address the needs of overburdened communities. Seek appropriate remedies in enforcement actions to benefit overburdened communities and address environmental justice concerns. Enhance communication with affected communities and the public regarding environmental justice concerns and the distribution and benefits of enforcement actions, as appropriate.

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